


Bruises and Battle Wounds

by RtronActivate



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-27 15:22:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/663533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RtronActivate/pseuds/RtronActivate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you're running with werewolves, you're bound to get scarred.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Braille of Your Skin

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a bunch of one shots I have sitting on my computer. I just got the invite here so I am excited to put them up. They are in no particular order and currently this on is my favorite.

Derek couldn’t help but feel more than a little satisfied. It was bound to happen. Enough… hurt had been branded to his heart that he was bound to get something in return. If the universe was fair, and he always believed it was (people still didn’t peg him as a romantic), he was due for a slice of happiness.

Stiles let out a huff, his lips slanting into a smile. “Big guy. Come on.” He said and it took Derek a moment to realize Stiles was speaking to him. He looked older now, hair grown wild and untamed, jaw firmer and arms steadier than he’s ever seen them. He’s taller too; as he slid next to Derek with practiced ease he was a breadth above him and he could tell the move was gloating. As always Derek was surprised to feel Stiles’s spider-like fingers weaving with his own, and like always Stiles scoffs.

(As always) Stiles gives him a tentatively warm smile accompanied with, “Surprised I haven’t left you yet?”

Derek squeezes the hand and leads him toward the festivities, pleased at the contact. Knees, hips, elbows, shoulders. It was almost rhythmic the way they fell into sync.

“Who am I kidding you think of yourself too highly.” Stiles said to himself, passing the attendant the entrance fee and getting two tickets in return. Derek watches him, disbelieving that this kid, this boy, this pain in the ass was all _his._ It was wonderful and sickening all at once.

Last time he checked he was due for a little happiness.

Stiles had a new scar around his left eye, and it snaked across his cheekbone where it blended with the healed gash on his crooked nose. He was a mess, but he always healed whole. When they were swallowed up in the crowd Derek traced his free hand along the scar, winding his pointer finger into his eyebrow. Stiles let out a huff of laughter, giving Derek a sidelong glance. “At some point I’m going to have so many scars they’ll cover my whole body. Then I can start new again.”

He said the stupidest things sometimes. And he talked far too much. And he couldn’t sit still during a movie. And he was the shittiest at trying to be quiet while tailing people. But he was Derek’s. And that was enough for him.

Somewhere between the cotton candy and the Ferris wheel they separate hands. Derek misses the contact so he presses alongside him during the teacups. Shoulder to shoulder, knees touching. How it should be. Stiles says nothing because by god he’s used to this. He likes it, and can’t help but wonder if he was always destined to be compatible with the only things in life that were beyond human. If he was meant to be with werewolves or if it was simply out of environment. He loved it either way.

“I can’t believe you’re mine.” Derek said quietly in that way that makes Stiles’s breath hitch. Stiles found that Derek had a knack for surprisingly honest admissions out of nowhere, and it still made him feel all warm and fuzzy when Derek got too embarrassed to speak aloud.

“Hey, Stilinskis aren’t property.” Stiles said jokingly, he could joke his way out of a Nazi interrogation if god was on his side. Derek kissed the back of Stiles’s hand, and he didn’t say ‘I love you’ but Stiles felt it all the same.

“Where else would I go?” Stiles said later, in the darkness of their bedroom. Their hands were together again, and their bodies were touching in every available place. Derek was like a goddamn furnace but Stiles knew that he needed to touch and Stiles’d be damned if he ignored Derek’s needs.

“Anywhere. Anyone would take you.” And Derek was so serious it wasn’t cheesy, and he had this way of being so honest that Stiles stammers until he finds his voice again.

“Why would I want to?” Stiles can’t believe it either. He’s used to temporary. He’s used to being helpful. He can dress wounds now and he can multitask like a motherfucker but that’s not what Derek is asking from him. Derek is asking for his presence, he just wants Stiles to be there because he loves Stiles and he wants to be pressed up against him for the rest of his life.

Some people might call it needy, but Stiles was never asked of that before.

“I can’t believe you’re mine.” Stiles echoes, burying his head in the crook of Derek’s neck. He can feel Derek’s fingers tracing his battle scars, the angry knot on his left shoulder, the thin lines traveling across his spine. Bandages around his middle to cover fresh wounds from an old fight. Stiles fought for this life. He fought hard. There was nothing more that he wanted from the universe now, and he was willing to compromise, to get hurt and feel pain for it to continue this way. He knows after a while Derek will abject to fighting, and Stiles won’t mind because he loves him and he knows it’s for his own good. Or they’ll die soon and their peaceful bliss of heaven will be cut tragically short. Stiles didn’t care. He had this moment and death couldn’t take that from him.

Stiles kisses him to tell Derek this and it’s like all their other kisses, slow and practiced and reminiscent of telling each other their secrets.

They deserved this. At least for a while. Stiles’s battle wounds would reopen and soon one scratch will be his last but it doesn’t matter.

This was enough.


	2. Murder is a Form of Heartbreak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Derek was never the asshole people make him out to be and Stiles trips into maturity.
> 
> This one is pre-relationship but I guess there is some romantic attachment if you look hard enough.  
> It's also very sad, although there is no graphic violence I realized that it's just... sad. Sorry I don't know where it came from.

The first time Stiles killed something he’s not surprised at all. He’s a senior in high school but then and there, with the gun in his hands, he feels like he is five and fifty-five all at one. It was out of retaliation more than anything; the thing left a long gaping gash across his front that he would have to go to the hospital if he cared anymore. He shot it. Multiple times. And when it slunk back to his human form he was left with this hollow acceptance of  _this is my life now_. The man was frozen in a scream and Stiles didn’t flinch to it. He wondered darkly what his dad would think of him if he found out he had murdered someone (actually murdered like  _dead, dead, dead_ ). What will Scott think? Scott the valiant. Scott the moral. What will Scott think when he finds Stiles’s hands covered in blood and his face hard and weathered like it was no surprise at all he could do that. What would his mom think? He doesn’t let himself think that because he knows the answer (ingrained in his brain were the words  _someone killed your mother like this too_ ) and it’s too hard for him to handle, maybe ever.

Nobody claps him on the shoulder after this one. Nobody commends him on how good the strategy was that he pulled off because somebody died goddamnit and it was Stiles that did it (sweet innocent Stiles, the Robin to your Batman Stiles). Scott didn’t even help with the stitches and he supposed that he should feel psychological pain at the withdrawal but he doesn’t because everything is hazy and foggy and if he wasn’t into this supernatural shit he was positive he’d become all  _Go Ask Alice_  on everyone so in a way he’s grateful.

He stays behind to put the med kit to use, wincing as the antiseptic worked its way through the rough patches. He’s alone again, well alone with Derek but for some reason it’s felt like alone to him. Like talking to a wall. This time though Derek is next to him, wiping the cotton swab across the curve of his neck, catching flakes of dried blood off the pale skin. Stiles is shaking and it takes a bit of restraint for Derek to stop himself from wrapping his arms around the kid.

Stiles’s breathing is labored and shallow, and when this all comes crashing down properly he knows that a panic attack will be on the way. For now though he just stares out, trying to focusbutnotfocus on the ugly wallpaper pattern.

Derek carefully and deliberately places a bandage at the cut, silent and sturdy and making Stiles want to kick him or scream at him to elicit an emotional response. Instead he furrows his brows and wets his lips, ready to say something and yet not ready at all.

“Do you think he had a family?” it was thin and quiet spilling out of his mouth as if he had no control. Stiles was positive that if Derek wasn’t a werewolf he would miss the question. As it was he paused at the admission before continuing with his work.

“He could have.” Was his reply. It was short and curt and brutally honest, and it brought out a strangled noise in Stiles’s throat. Derek shifted in front of Stiles to get to the cut along his jaw but Stiles had suddenly buried himself into the older man, heaving dry pathetic sobs all over his shirt.

“Why am I here?” he said, his voice wrecked and broken. Derek placed his heavy hands on Stiles’s back in an awkward close-contact-confuses-me pat. The boy did not mind though as he gripped Derek tighter.

Derek didn’t say words, not because he cannot (he knows the comfort words, the lies that makes it feel like your putting plastic wrap over a bleeding wound) but because he knew how to do this, how to console. He’s been there, through hell and back (even now he’s not quite sure if he’s set and free). It’s been three years since everyone was alone and Derek wanted to make sure that he did this right. No one was there when he had murdered someone, when he had torn out their throats and utterly destroyed their bodies. That wasn’t going to happen to his pack.

A small part of him felt bad for this, for making the young and innocent become disillusioned so quickly. He understood somewhere in his mind that lives just travel different paths and that everyone chose this, that Stiles chose this (and even if he wanted to back out Stiles knew, at this weakest and darkest moment, he would stay). Angst was part of his being, though, so he could feel the self-loathing coming on as he gave the boy a small squeeze.

“Sometimes we need to sacrifice ourselves for each other.” He said quietly, after Stiles had stopped heaving and was gathering his things in the most silent and deliberate manner. Stiles peered at Derek, his mouth in a small and accepting frown but his eyes wide and almost childlike.

Soon he’ll explain to Stiles what it all means, that sacrificing your life, your health, and your mind for this idea of belonging is something everybody does. That it doesn’t get better but it’s all they’ve got and if you want something, chances are you’ll have to pay some sort of consequence. He’s just a kid; they all are, but Stiles couldn’t lose his exuberance, his childlike excitement. It something that Derek would sorely miss.

“Is that what you do?” He said plainly, catching Derek off guard. He couldn’t muster up the words to say anything now though. If he was Scott e would find a way to pout the look of Stiles’s face. If he was Lydia, a snarky comment. Danny would offer closeness and nothing else. But he was Derek. All Derek could offer, all he will ever offer was honesty.

“Yes. I’d sacrifice everything.” There was so much more he wanted to say, but it was all that came out. Stiles waited a moment before leaving, casting a lingering glance at the Alpha. There was a thin smile on his face, and it was tugging at the corners of his lips like it wanted to stay there. Maybe Stiles already accepted on some level that yes, he was okay with this. Maybe he understood.

If Derek strained his ears, he could almost hear Stiles breathe a weak “thank you” to the steering wheel. 


	3. And I Thought you Were Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little short I think but I like this one enough. I am a firm believer in Sterek happening later, especially since from my own experience I can say a relationship that serious and almost 'taboo' would be a slow slow slow build.
> 
> These three have been in Derek's POV and so are the most of the ficlets saved on my computer. I might make the next in Stiles's POV.

Derek had a crease in his brow that betrayed an otherwise blank expression. They lay shoulder to shoulder on Stiles’s small bed, Stiles’s breathing horribly ragged and Derek fighting off this strange urge to keep him close.

“Dude.” Stiles said finally, let out a weak laugh. “We almost died tonight.” He said, his wondrous tone making Derek’s brow deepen. Stiles hastily corrected himself, “Well I get it; you don’t die. You like respawn as easily as a Call Of Duty character. So I guess that means just me. Am I in shock? Is that why I feel so fucking lightheaded?” Stiles sounded so detached it made Derek involuntarily wince. He arrested his features before Stiles noticed.

“You need to breathe deeper.” Derek cautioned, but Stiles had turned on his side and was staring intently, albeit sleepily, at Derek. For a moment it looked like Stiles is going to say something important, something personal, but god knows neither of them know how to speak plainly. Instead he rubbed the pad of his thumb over the hook of Derek’s jaw and said weakly, “You weren’t worried were you, Sourwolf?” It was such a tender gesture it made Derek tense, trying to fight off any expression because by god he was not going to be broken by this pain in the ass.

And it was all that Stiles was to him, all he ever was. Even back in high school when everyone was brooding and nobody was right Stiles had been an afterthought. Now. Now though, Derek’s world was much smaller and Stiles was somewhere in the center of it. Not in a needy, you’re the other half to my soul kind of focus (because even if love was ever to take him again he would die before saying sappy shit like that), but in a ‘you’re one of the most important people in my life and you almost dying made me realize it’ way.

They weren’t anything. All they did was dance around each other because Stiles was always a child. He was smart, sure, and honest and open and mature, but he was always eons behind Derek. He glanced down at Stiles, realizing for the first time that the gap had closed. Somewhere between sixteen and nineteen Stiles had found out just what loss and stress and pressure felt like. Somehow now he understood Derek more than anyone has since Laura, and that is a startling thing to realize in the dim light of an apartment at two in the morning.

No, they were nothing, but Derek realized that he wanted it to be something, which surprised and worried him all at once.

He wanted to tell him things, things that he just didn’t share. Worries and issues and little nagging thoughts he just wants _gone_ and he wants to tell Stiles all of it. He wanted to share with the kid his reservations about falling like they are, how he’s afraid (yes goddamit, afraid) that Stiles’s life will slip from him like sand from a sieve. How absolutely, unabashedly terrified he was to see how close they came tonight.

But Derek’s never good with words so he says nothing to it, steeling his eyes and trying to ignore the ragged breaths coming from the boy staring down at him. He was young but no longer below him and it scared Derek how close they were to this thing. This thing that Derek could see Stiles had fallen into, and that he seemed to had tumbled down as well.

Of course. Of course it was Stiles that did it first. He was fearless. A human in this shit-storm of supernatural. Being the weakest had made him the bravest, so it was Stiles’s spider fingers that curled around Derek’s neck, bringing his face down and brushing their lips together.

“I thought we weren’t gonna see each other again. I was worried nobody would call you out on you douchebaggery anymore.” He whispers weakly against his lips.

Derek opens his mouth to say _Get some sleep Stiles_ but instead Derek’s mouth just opens wide and crashes against Stiles’s, needy and gaping and desperate. What Derek lacks in words he makes up for in actions and Derek (the small part that’s slowly been bleeding into his other parts) will be damned if Stiles didn’t know how distressed losing him would make Derek. Stiles gasps at the beginning, surprised at the onslaught, but Derek presses on, working his lips against Stiles fast and rough because desperation makes one sloppy. Derek’s wide shaking hands end up boxing Stiles in, keeping him there because Derek’d be damned if Stiles slipped away a second time that night.

And Stiles, he didn’t mind too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any suggestions for the next chapter? Let me know!

**Author's Note:**

> Criticism is always welcome. I'm a big girl, I can handle it.


End file.
